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#JobSearch : The Secret to Getting a Better Job After 50. Even in a Hot Hiring Market, it is Tough for Workers over 50. MUst REad!

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Even in a hot hiring market, it is tough for workers over 50 to stay competitive in workplaces that often value youth over experience.

The pandemic has been especially hard on older employees seeking to reclaim jobs lost in the early days of lockdowns. Many say they fear that the workplace upheaval brought on by Covid-19 has reinforced some bosses’ belief that professionals in their 50s and beyond are less inclined to return to offices or adapt to new ways of working.

Workers over 50 haven’t joined the jobs recovery to the same degree as younger peers, not counting the millions who retired early during the past two years. In January, nearly one-third of job seekers age 55 and older were part of the long-term unemployed, according to federal data, compared with 21.8% of those between 16 and 54.

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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It is perhaps little surprise that in the AARP’s most recent survey, 78% of workers between 40 and 65 said they had seen age discrimination in 2020, the highest share since the advocacy group began tracking the question in 2003.

Professionals who have kept careers progressing well into their fourth and fifth working decades say they have developed a few strategies.

Tackle age discrimination head on

Rule No. 1, they say: Confront the reality of age discrimination head on instead of avoiding it. Some say they are doing so by appearing youthful—both in person, for hiring managers and colleagues, and in writing, to the bots that screen résumés. Others are pitching themselves as indispensable mentors to younger colleagues.

“You have to never give up,” said Jennifer Kay Rouse, who at 61 started a new job this month as a customer-success manager after losing her sales-account-manager position in a corporate acquisition last year.

Ageism persists as one of the most insidious forms of on-the-job discrimination, according to academic research and employment experts. In a 2021 study, researchers at New York and Stanford universities found people who opposed racism and sexism at work were still likely to harbor prejudices against older employees and to believe such workers should step aside for younger colleagues.

Meanwhile, many job postings appear to target younger job seekers with terms such as “digital native” or “recent grad,” and employers focus recruiting efforts on rising talent rather than on proven veterans.

This month, unsealed court documents in an age-discrimination case cited emails in which an executive at International Business Machines Corp. referred to older workers as “dinobabies” and a plan to make them an “extinct species.” An IBM spokesman said “some language in emails between former IBM executives that has been reported is not consistent with the respect IBM has for its employees and as the facts clearly show, it does not reflect company practices or policies.”

Punch up your résumé

Ms. Rouse of Waukesha, Wis., says that asking a job interviewer for constructive advice and punching up her résumé with language such as “solid reputation” and “high performer” helped her land her new job at an industrial automation company.

Ms. Rouse maintains a youthful look by staying fit and wearing what she described as an “edgy” haircut with hair on the back and side shaved underneath the top layer. After landing several interviews but not the jobs, she asked an interviewer to level with her “to satisfy my curiosity as to whether it is about age,” she said.

The interviewer didn’t address her age directly but suggested her lengthy experience might make some interviewers assume she had come in with a know-it-all attitude. So she tweaked her approach, emphasizing in interviews that she was a team player. And she acknowledged being older to make the point that she could mentor younger colleagues and was open to being mentored by them, too.

A résumé writer she found on LinkedIn for $125 also helped refresh hers with a more modern format and buzzy phrases, such as “exceptional customer relationships,” which she said yielded more bites from employers. Ms. Rouse now earns more in her new job than she did in her previous role.

“I love business, and I love strategizing to give customers the best outcomes,” she said. “I wasn’t ready to give all of that up.” 

Evade the job applicant-screening bots

Employers can’t legally reject applicants based on their age, but ageism can arise subtly in job postings and the algorithms that screen them. Applicant-screening software can potentially filter out older workers whose résumés show lengthy employment gaps. Other details can also date candidates, such as WordPerfect proficiency or an AOL email account, career coaches and recruiters say.

Laid off in 2018 from a middle-management role in delivery and logistics at the company where he had worked for 17 years, 56-year-old Dale Johnston said he was prepared for the algorithms that would likely screen his résumé. Instead of “17 years,” for instance, he wrote “over 10 years.”

“I had to be very conscious about what I put in and time frames to get past the bots and AI,” said Mr. Johnston, who lives in Bellingham, Wash. “I wasn’t lying. I just wasn’t disclosing the full age.”

He also kept his hair closely cropped while interviewing, because it looks more gray when it’s longer, he said. After landing a job as an analyst with a municipality in 2019, then losing it to cost-cutting a year later, he used the same tactics to apply for a job as an operations manager for a logistics-transportation company, where he works today.

Position yourself as a mentor

Ginny Cheng, a San Francisco career coach and recruiter, advises clients that it is better to delete early years of work experience from your résumé if they mostly date you.

“If your total work experience is over 25 years but your last 15 is most relevant to the new opportunities you are seeking, you can focus on the newer timeline,” she said.

The key, employment experts say, is putting the focus on your talents, not your age. “Employers value wisdom, so it’s important to emphasize what you’ve learned and what you’re good at, not the amount of time you spent in the labor force,” said Richard W. Johnson, director of the program on retirement policy at the Urban Institute.

Harry Moseley retired at 62 from his job as chief information officer at KPMG US in early 2018 but jumped back into the workforce a couple months later by repositioning himself as a mentor.

During what would be a brief retirement, he had let his network know he remained open to new ventures and helping coach at another company. A friend soon approached him with an opportunity as global chief information officer at Zoom Video Communications Inc. Mr. Moseley hadn’t thought he wanted to return to a full-time role, but the position excited him.

“It could be a lot of fun, and I felt like I could help,” he said.

At Zoom since March 2018 and working mostly from the New York area, where he lives, the now 66-year-old Mr. Moseley said he makes a point of not appearing resistant to change. “You kind of have to say, ‘OK, well, that’s how I used to do things,’ and you have to have an open mind and look at things in a different way,” he said.

At the same time, he uses his experience to guide colleagues. “I am who I am. Take me for who I am,” he said.

WSJ.com Author:  Ray A. Smith,  Write to Ray  at Ray.Smith@wsj.com

WSJ.com | March 23, 2022  

#Leadership : #RecruitingTalent -Why #OlderWorkers are the Economy’s Hidden Asset. #AgeDiscrimination is real, and a #JobLoss around age 60 can Force #EarlyRetirement.

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The association of old age with inevitable decline runs deep. To carry on with work–or indeed with anything more demanding than afternoon lectures, a movie, and an early dinner–during the traditional retirement years seems cute at best and depressing at worst.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith called these common reactions–surprise laced with condescending admiration or misplaced concern–the “Still Syndrome.” It’s the “young” asking questions like, ‘Are you still well?’ ‘Are you still working?’ ‘I see that you are still taking exercise.’ ‘Still having a drink?’ As a compulsive writer, I am subject to my own special assault, ‘I see you are still writing.’ ‘Your writing still seems pretty good to me.’ The most dramatic general expression came from a friend I hadn’t seen for some years: ‘I can hardly believe you’re still alive!’”

No one would think “decline” on meeting Luanne Mullin, age 71. Mullin has assembled a portfolio of activities in recent years, some paying gigs and others volunteer jobs. “Life is full,” she says, laughing. That’s an understatement. Among her jobs with incomes are project manager for a nonprofit organization in Marin County, California, that focuses on older adults and the disabled; her own coaching business and workshops; and acting gigs in the backgrounds of television and movies. Mullin has a portfolio of volunteer ventures, too. She’s a volunteer leader for the mature student organization at the College of Marin, focusing on lifelong learning. She helps produce a local documentary film series. She organizes salons bringing people together to discuss critical topics.

Mullin has plenty of company in her entrepreneurial quest. The demographics of aging ranks as one of the most significant long-term forces shaping the U.S. economy and society, alongside globalization, automation, and climate change. The numbers are striking. The U.S. Census Bureau forecasts that those individuals 65 years and older will account for more than 21 percent of the U.S. population–about 73 million–in 2030. Older Americans are also living longer, on average. Life expectancy for people reaching age 65 now averages 19.4 years. That’s up from 13.9 years in 1950.

OLDER WORKERS ARE STARTING MORE BUSINESSES

Older Americans are showing plenty of zest for life at work and at home. They aren’t doddering life away as antiquated stereotypes, and tasteless jokes suggest. The swelling numbers of Americans age 50 and older and their experiments in rethinking and reimagining the second half of life will have a profound impact on everyday life in America.

“In coming decades, many forces will shape our economy and our society, but in all likelihood, no single factor will have as pervasive an effect as the aging of our population,” said Ben Bernanke in a speech when he was still chair of the Federal Reserve Board. For instance, the future trajectory of housing markets, public transportation networks, and urban design will be shaped by growing numbers of mature adults. The global age-friendly city initiative is encouraging many urban communities to accommodate an aging population. Well-connected transportation networks of public transit, ride-sharing apps, and on-demand vans can ease trips among modern elders to work, the grocery store, restaurants, yoga studios, and medical appointments.

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An impressive body of scholarly research suggests that, given the opportunity, people in the second half of life can be as creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial as their younger peers, if not more so. Experienced adults are experimenting with different ways to stay attached to the economy, including self-employment, entrepreneurship, full-time jobs, part-time work, flexible employment, and encore careers. Here’s one indication of the embrace of work: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between 1995 and 2016, the share of men ages 65 to 69 in the labor force rose from 28 percent to 38 percent. The comparable figures for women were 18 percent and 30 percent.

Here’s another critical number with a similar message: The 55-to-64-year-old age cohort accounted for 25.5 percent of new entrepreneurs in 2016, up from 14.8 percent in 1996, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unincorporated and incorporated self-employment rate among workers age 65 and older was the highest of any age group. The 65-plus rate of self-employment was more than triple the unincorporated rate and five times the incorporated rate of the 25-to-34-year-old age group. Put it this way: The 50-plus population will start more businesses in the years ahead than any other demographic.

WHAT OLDER WORKERS CAN BRING TO THE WORKFORCE

Here is a big, grassroots idea that is already making its presence felt: Experienced workers and 50-plus entrepreneurs rethinking and reimagining the second half of life. A new era of broad-based prosperity is within our grasp. Older adults are in the vanguard of inclusiveness by breaking down barriers to staying employed. The fight for purpose and a paycheck is a battle for respect and recognition.

“Perhaps the greatest opportunity of the twenty-first century is to envision and create a society that nurtures longer lives not only for the sake of the older generation, but also for the benefit of all age groups–what I call the Third Demographic Dividend,” writes Linda Fried, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “To get there requires a collective grand act of imagination to create a vision for the potential of longer lives.” Fried is spot on.

Older adults are already exercising their imagination as productive workers and motivated volunteers and engaged entrepreneurs. They’re battling against age discrimination, taking actions to remove pernicious stereotypes holding down experienced workers. Older Americans represent an enormous market for goods, services, and experiences. Many of those products and services will be built and designed by older adults with a flair for understanding the 50-plus market. The widely touted innovative benefits of employing a diverse workforce include tapping into the insights of older workers.

Several factors are coming together and reinforcing one another, bringing new ideas and different expectations about the second half of life from society’s fringes to the mainstream. Boomers are better educated than previous generations. They’re also healthier, with a sixty-five-year-old today having the same risk of mortality or serious illness as those in their mid-50s a generation ago.

The most under-appreciated aspect of work may well be that it’s a social activity. Colleagues care if you show up. Work offers the possibility of creativity and purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, an opportunity to tap into skills and knowledge developed over the years. Work helps people stay physically fit and mentally active. Social connections are one of the best contributors to meaningful longevity and, for many older adults, the community in which they spend the most time is the workplace. Employers are finally looking at experienced workers with greater appreciation.

A big reason behind the change in employer attitudes is the relatively tight labor market of recent years. Employers continuously complain they can’t find the qualified labor they need. I’ve never found the lament particularly convincing. It seems many experienced workers could do the job, given the chance and perhaps with some training. But executives seemed blind to the opportunity experienced workers offered–until now. Management teams are finally learning they can’t afford to ignore experience.

Age discrimination is real, and a job loss around age 60 can force early retirement. The business cycle hasn’t been tamed, and more recessions lie in our future. The timing of the next downturn is uncertain. But it’s a safe bet that the unemployment rate will climb higher at some point, including for experienced workers in the second half of life.

That said, there is no going back. America has passed a significant inflection point when it comes to experienced workers and mature entrepreneurs creating a more welcoming economy and labor market. Experienced workers are no longer obsolete. They’re a valuable asset–productive and creative–with older entrepreneurs in the vanguard.

This article is adapted from Purpose and a Paycheck: Finding Meaning, Money, and Happiness in the Second Half of Life by Chris Farrell. It is reprinted with permission from HarperCollins Leadership. 

 

FastCompany.com | February 23, 2019 | BY CHRIS FARRELL 6 MINUTE READ

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#CareerAdvice : #OlderWorkers – Just Unbearable.’ Booming Job Market Can’t Fill the Retirement Shortfall

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For older Americans, the last few years of work can be a vital chance to patch up thin savings or pay down debt to ease their way into retirement. Many aren’t getting that opportunity.

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Overall, 31% of job seekers aged 55 and older report they have been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer.

 

“My job now is to keep my job” and make my employer successful, she said, “so I can retire and not be a burden to my children.”

Greg Miller, 65 years old, a former environmental engineer and contract administrator, was laid off in 2017. He recently gave up looking for full-time work after sending out more than 400 résumés.

“The heartbreak and the discouragement were just unbearable,” said Mr. Miller, who lives on Social Security and a part-time job. He shares a ranch house in Lansing, Mich., with three other men. “I am kind of working without a net here,” he said.

This kind of late-career employment woe is part of a paradox that is deepening the worst retirement shortfall in decades.

Even though the official unemployment rate is just 3% for older workers, the actual jobs environment is surprisingly bleak. Nearly eight million older Americans are out of work or stuck in low-quality jobs that offer little opportunity to prepare for retirement, a Wall Street Journal analysis of government data shows.

At Risk

Nearly eight million older Americans are out of work or stuck in low-quality jobs that offer little opportunity to prepare for retirement.

The figures include the nearly 2.1 million Americans who are out of work, working part time because they can’t find a full-time job or have stopped looking because they don’t think anyone will hire them.

Another 5.8 million Americans—or 23% of full-time, year-round workers ages 55 and older—are employed in what economists describe as “bad jobs” that offer no health benefits and typically pay poorly. A decade ago, about 20% held these jobs, according to census data compiled by the Minnesota Population Center.

“These jobs, which might be right for some, tend to offer low pay and little opportunity to save for retirement,” said Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

When older workers find themselves out of a job, it typically takes them a long time to find work and they end up worse off financially.

Workers 56 and older earn on average 27% less in their new job after they’ve been unemployed for at least a month, according to an analysis by Stony Brook University economist David Wiczer, compared with an average raise of 7% for people under age 30.

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Pay Cut

After a period of unemployment, older workers earn less when they move into their next job.

For older workers, the earnings losses “come from moving down the occupational ladder” and being unemployed for longer, Mr. Wiczer said. The people who go through unemployment “and come out better on the other side, he added, “are almost exclusively under 35.”

Even just a few months out of work or living on a depressed salary without benefits can strain a senior’s finances as he struggles to cover mortgage payments, health care and other routine expenses. When a job is lost late in life and it takes a long time to find a new one, it can push back retirement by years or even erase the prospect of retirement completely.

“There is a model we are familiar with—work to 55 or 60, play golf for five or 10 years and then die,” said Paul Rupert, founder of Respectful Exits, a Chevy Chase, Md., nonprofit that advocates for improved employer practices with aging workers. “But now people are living to 80 or 90 and that model is completely broken.”

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Staying on the job can have a significant impact on a retiree’s financial well-being. Working just three to six more months provides the same financial boost as saving an additional 1 percentage point of earnings annually for 30 years, says Stanford University economist John Shoven.

Working longer carries an outsize payoff because monthly Social Security payments increase by 8% plus inflation for every year retirees delay claiming benefits until age 70. Staying employed also allows more time to contribute to retirement savings and for those funds to compound before the first withdrawals.

The reasons companies aren’t hiring older workers are complex. Many have long directed recruiting and training at younger workers. Some older job seekers lack the right skills or are unable or unwilling to relocate, while others are disadvantaged by new ways of recruiting, such as online tools that use key words to identify candidates for interviews. Some job-placement specialists say age discrimination is a factor. Employers may consider older workers more expensive, even at the same pay, because of higher health-care costs.

“I keep hearing that the economy is better, but we are not seeing that for our clients,” said Amanda Fox, director of career development and counseling at New Directions Career Center, which works with women in central Ohio.

One New Directions client, Jill Short, 59, of Columbus, has an M.B.A. and previously worked for the federal government, a local utility and a technology subcontractor. The financial crisis made it tough to re-enter the job market after she took time off for foot surgery in late 2007. She had a few seasonal positions, but didn’t find another full-time job until 2012 and was laid off in a restructuring 4 ½ years later.

“I probably should have declared bankruptcy, but I didn’t want to lose my house,” said Ms. Short, whose temporary position helping seniors select Medicare plans ended earlier this month. She receives $192 a month in food stamps and owes about $30,000 in credit-card debt and loans from friends.

“I have depleted my savings. There really is none,” said Ms. Short, who has a four-inch thick folder detailing all the jobs she has applied for. Her goal is to work until 70 in a full-time job with benefits.

Such difficulties come at a time when companies around the country are struggling to find workers. In Minnesota, the unemployment rate is 2.8%. For the past two years, the state Chamber of Commerce has held an annual event hoping to entice employers to hire categories of people being ignored by companies: the disabled, ex-offenders—and anyone over 55.

“This is a long-term challenge,” said Bill Blazar, until recently the group’s senior vice president. “Employers for decades have had certain strategies for hiring their staff.”

Ultra Machining Co. in Monticello, Minn., is working hard to retain veteran employees by offering shorter hours, and is launching a training program for candidates with little or no manufacturing experience that it hopes will attract older workers. But the 200-person company has long focused on recruiting the young, creating feeder programs and apprenticeships aimed at middle- and high-school students.

“Kids hang out at schools and we can just plug in,” said Jaci Dukowitz, director of human resources. “Where do older people hang out? What do they do when they are looking for jobs? Those programs aren’t in our community or, if they are, we are not aware of them.”

Compounding the financial hit is a long period of unemployment that drains what had been stored up.

Long Slog

There are more seniors out of work for longer than in the past.

Overall, 31% of job seekers aged 55 and older report they have been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, according to the BLS, compared with just 24% of younger job seekers. Older job seekers report looking for work, on average, 34.6 weeks. That is nearly three months longer than the average of 23.4 weeks reported by unemployed 25- to 54-year-olds.

What had been the largest safety net for someone this age is also evaporating. Seventeen percent of workers ages 55 to 64 had a pension plan in 2016, down from 33% in 1992, according to the Boston College Center for Retirement Research.

Lisa Borthwick, currently age 60, was working as a graphic designer for a group of real-estate magazines when the financial crisis hit. She lost her job, then her Hernando, Fla., home, then her savings. She has no pension. She took on student loans to pay for her degree.

A decade later, she is still struggling to recover.

“When I was sitting for interviews, they offered me $10 an hour,” she recalled. “They said most people your age only need supplemental income.”

Physically Taxing

Most common occupations for newly hired people age 62 and older, by percentage of workers

Now living in the Midwest, she recently landed two part-time jobs—as an operations manager for a nonprofit and an administrator for a real-estate company. She said both jobs are fabulous, but she can’t afford her own apartment in a neighborhood where she would feel safe and doesn’t receive health insurance or other benefits.

For the past two years Ms. Borthwick has rented a bedroom from a couple she met when, on the verge of homelessness, she put her dog up for foster care.

“Am I asking too much to be compensated for my experience?” Ms. Borthwick asked. “I am fairly tenacious, determined and resilient, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”

At nonprofit employment training agency Nova Workforce Development Board in Silicon Valley, more than three-quarters of dislocated workers are 45 or older and nearly one-third have advanced degrees.

“The older you are, the longer you are unemployed,” said Nova executive director Kris Stadelman. “The longer you are unemployed, the less attractive you are to any employer.”

Nova coaches clients to “de-age” their résumés by focusing on the past 10 to 20 years of experience, and highlighting recent training and credentials. It teaches how to interview with someone half their age and subsidizes training so they can reframe their education with, say, a certificate in another computer language.

Paul Millman, chief executive of Chroma Technology Corp., which recently won a state award for supporting mature workers, said he doesn’t understand companies “that turn up their noses up at experience.” The Bellows Falls, Vt., optical-filters manufacturer offers training to workers of all ages and opportunities for sabbaticals. Forty-four percent of its 124 employees are 53 and older.

Newer ways of recruiting via online application processes can disadvantage older workers, especially if their skills don’t fit the precise requirements but may be transferable.

Some studies have found what appears to be direct evidence of age bias. David Neumark, a University of California, Irvine economist, created fictional résumés for comparable job candidates around age 30, 50 and 65 and then submitted their applications to more than 13,000 different job postings. Callback rates declined by age, with bigger drops for female applicants.

Some states are experimenting with ways to connect experienced job seekers with willing employers.

The Southeast Michigan Community Alliance in Taylor, Mich., held its first 50+ job fair this spring with AARP Michigan. Job seekers’ qualifications were reviewed before the event to make sure they had the needed skills; 31 of them received job offers on the spot.

Most participating companies were in the retail, hospitality and home health-care industries, and offered hourly positions that require applicants to spend the workday on their feet. That was disappointing for attendees seeking “more professional work,” said workforce programs administrator Ana Salazar.

A tight job market “makes you look at your openings quite differently,” said Julie Haak, corporate director of human resources at Neogen Corp., a Lansing, Mich.-based food and animal safety company with about 1,600 employees. Neogen has hired several older workers through Michigan AARP and is looking to partner with the group on a 50+ job fair.

Michele Langdon, 55, had worked for several startups and was employed by Hewlett Packard for nearly 20 years. In 2016, she was let go after the company sold the unit she worked for.

Divorced and with two children, Ms. Langdon ran up $50,000 in credit-card debt. She relied on unemployment insurance, food stamps and a state program that helps the unemployed pay their mortgages during her 18-month job search.

Ms. Langdon figures she applied for roughly 500 jobs and eventually had to settle for a short-term contract position. A few months later, she was offered a full-time job as a program manager for a new data-center business at a different company.

But the lengthy time out of work means she now expects to work until at least age 70.

“My job now is to keep my job” and make my employer successful, she said, “so I can retire and not be a burden to my children.”

—Paul Overberg contributed to this article.

Write to Ruth Simon at ruth.simon@wsj.com

Appeared in the December 21, 2018, print edition as ‘Booming Job Market Can’t Fill Retirement Shortfall.’

WSJ.com | Ruth Simon

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Your #Career : In a Digital Era, How Can #OlderWorkers Stay in the Game?…These Strategies Help #VeteranEmployees Stay Current and Valuable as #Workplaces become Younger and More Tech-Focused.

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Do your colleagues at the office seem to be getting younger?

It looks that way to the millions of older employees in industries being disrupted in the digital era and favoring younger more digitally savvy workers, such as tech, entertainment, retailing and media. As more workers in their 40s and beyond plan to delay retirement until their mid-60s, a growing number will have to hustle to reassert their value to their employers.

A core question older employees face: Would your boss hire you again with the skills you have now? Being able to answer yes takes some smart moves to keep your skills fresh, your attitude upbeat and your personal style up-to-date.

Waiting to act until a buyout offer or other rumblings of cutbacks surface at your company is too late. “You can’t wait until the axe is falling to get out of the way,” says Judith Gerberg, a New York City executive coach.

Networking with younger colleagues and showing curiosity about what they do can help you stay abreast of changes, says Ellis Chase, a New York career-management consultant and author. “You have to break through your comfort zone and talk to that 28-year-old hotshot. Seek her out and ask, ‘I’d love to learn more about this. Could you spend a half-hour with me? I’ll take you to lunch,’ ” Mr. Chase says.

Jeff Fuerst, 52, survived eight years at a shrinking retailer, Sears Holding Corp., by staying attuned to new technology and younger colleagues. His adaptability enabled him to jump to a new position recently.
Jeff Fuerst, 52, survived eight years at a shrinking retailer, Sears Holding Corp., by staying attuned to new technology and younger colleagues. His adaptability enabled him to jump to a new position recently. PHOTO: STEVEN BOURELLE

Jeff Fuerst, 52, spent eight years in his 40s as an inventory-management executive at Sears Holding Corp. , the troubled retailer, in hopes of helping it turn around. He stayed abreast of technology and helped start a work-from-home program to help attract young recruits. As Sears continued to close stores, he kept his industry contacts fresh by attending meetings of professional groups.

In a transition initiated by one of those contacts, Mr. Fuerst left Sears three years ago for a position as a senior vice president at Integrated Merchandising Systems, a Morton Grove, Ill., merchandising and marketing agency. There, he’s learning e-commerce and digital-marketing technology, and he has since been promoted to chief logistics officer. “If you don’t react quickly to change, it’s very hard to keep up,” Mr. Fuerst says.

Forming ties and collaborating with colleagues at all levels is an important survival skill, Ms. Gerberg says. Make sure “you have somebody who, if your name comes up at a meeting to be fired, will say, ‘Oh no, that person is great. I’ve worked with them,’ ” she says. If your group is targeted for buyouts, having friends inside the company also improves your chances of transferring to a new assignment in a different unit.

Karen Alber, 54, continued to advance her skills and build new contacts during stints at three separate beverage and food companies in the past 15 years, enduring major cost cuts and restructuring threats and leaving voluntarily in each case. She earned certifications in a field that didn’t exist when she graduated from college in the 1980s—supply-chain management.

She joined professional groups and spoke at meetings. “I sometimes thought, ‘Really? I have to get on a plane and go to a conference?’ ” Ms. Alber says. “But then I did it anyway.” She took coaching courses because she enjoyed mentoring young colleagues.

She also volunteered for internal projects, including task forces for improving how work got done. She sometimes worried, “If I go on this team, how am I ever going to get my job back?” Ms. Alber says. But she learned valuable skills, including managing cross-functional teams and delegating work she couldn’t do herself, helping her advance to chief information officer.

Karen Alber, 54, stayed up-to-date in part by earning certifications in a field that didn't even exist when she graduated from college: supply-chain management.
Karen Alber, 54, stayed up-to-date in part by earning certifications in a field that didn’t even exist when she graduated from college: supply-chain management. PHOTO: KYM TURNER/NORTH MYRTLE BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY

“It became her brand,” says Amy Ruppert, an executive coach who worked with Ms. Alber for years. “People knew, ‘You can throw Karen Alber into anything and she’ll run with it.’ ” Two years ago, Ms. Alber made a planned, voluntary move to a new career, co-founding the Integreship Group, a Chicago leadership-coaching firm, with Ms. Ruppert.

Many people face psychological roadblocks to learning new jobs or skills, says Andy Molinsky, a professor of organizational behavior at Brandeis University and author of a book on stepping outside your comfort zone. Older workers may feel resentful about having to stretch themselves when they’ve already worked for decades. Or they may think, “This doesn’t feel like me,” Dr. Molinsky says.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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One way to do this, consultants and coaches say, is to develop your personal style. That doesn’t mean overhauling your wardrobe or appearance in an effort to look as hip as younger colleagues. “If you’re in your 30s and you have stubble, maybe it’s hunky. But if you’re 70 and you’ve got gray stubble, it looks like you’re homeless,” says Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School and author of “Managing the Older Worker.”

New York image consultant Amanda Sanders advises choosing clothing and accessories that reflect current fashions, but making sure they also fit well and look good on you. Men can update their look by choosing trousers with tapered legs, leather shoes with double monk straps rather than laces, and contemporary glasses with tortoiseshell or colorful transparent frames. While an Apple watch suggests the wearer is tech savvy, “on someone older it looks like they’re trying to be young,” ​Ms. Sanders says. A​ better choice might be a classic watch with a leather band, she says. ​

Women should abandon outdated looks, such as a frumpy cardigan over a dress, in favor of a leather jacket or asymmetrical sweater, Ms. Sanders says.

Those whose hair is thinning can color it with highlights to lend more depth and thickness, she suggests. And gray hair is fine if it’s healthy and styled in a contemporary way, Ms. Sanders says. “Wear your age as a badge of honor,” she says. “If you believe it, they’ll believe it.”

SAVVY MOVES

To improve your survival chances late in your career:

  • If your area is a likely target for cuts, explore potential assignments in other units.
  • Look for problems you can solve for your employer to demonstrate your strengths.
  • Consider updating your wardrobe and hairstyle with help from a trusted adviser.
  • Participate when possible in off-hours socializing or charity events with colleagues.
  • Take the initiative to get to know younger colleagues with skills you don’t have.
  • Volunteer to help with training or onboarding programs for new hires.
  • Raise your hand for internal projects that will strengthen your network or skills.
  • Update your professional credentials via training or refresher courses.
  • Stay involved in professional organizations or your college alumni network.

 

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at Sue.Shellenbarger@wsj.com

 

WSJ.com | May 22, 2018 | Sue Shellenbarger

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